Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The current debate going on internationally against the
srilankan government's atrocities against tamil civilians has sparked
contrasting reviews in different lobbies.

It was a rather late response to UK based channel 4's
documentary Srilanka's killing fields. The video was shown in the UN human
rights commission (UNHRC), which shocked each and every person and the world,
many of them in tears. The video illustrates a very disturbing account of the
attacks of srilankan army on LTTE stronghold. They started the attack on the
town named kilinochi and slowly wiping out most of the people in other northern
and eastern parts of lanka. During the war, the video shows common civilians
running for life, beaten up to death, shot at gunpoint and young women sexually
abused and killed later. The video also shows men n women stripped and killed
with a gun shot on the skull, much like the Taliban killings. As the nude
bodies were piled up in a truck, the srilankan soldiers even passed some lewd
comments on the dead bodies of young females.

To make it more painful, the army even did heavy shelling on
the no fly zones, which were used as makeshift hospitals to treat the wounded.
The hospitals, refugee camps, and food shelters everything was brought down
with attacks. The channel gives an estimate of 40000 casualties and many
wounded and disabled. Srilankan government as expected out rightly denied the
allegations and said the videos were maligned. One of the srilankan channels
also counterfeited the claims of the documentary. The most shocking part was
that supposedly UN had full knowledge of things going on in srilanka but did
nothing.

US then passed a resolution against the war crimes in UNHRC
which was later passed by UN. Then the decision was taken to vote for the
resolution. 24 Countries supported the resolution, 18 against and 8 absentees.
There was a whole debate whether India should support or not, but they finally
gave up to the pressure by Tamil nadu govt and voted against one of the most
trusted allies of our country. Though India tried to lighten the stand with a
request to bring an amendment to the resolution that the entire human rights
enquiry is done with consultation of the government. Most neighbors including
china, Pakistan supported Lankan stand. Srilankan president Rajapakshe quoted
it was against the very international law, it is an attack on sovereignty.
Though srilanka did agree to make some amendments abiding to Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation commission (LLRC). And said that they would do whatever is feasible. So does this make us the odd one out amongst
the SAARC countries, the debate continues?

Interesting thing is the resolution was passed by the very
United States, who themselves were accused of war crimes on innocent people in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Well the matter just died down. There were no UN
resolutions to it as far as I know. So did we bow down to the west, supporting
the very country that have accused us many times of human rights violations in
Kashmir and Assam and need for international interference. Did US just made us
look like puppets, the question remains?

Finally no one thought about the humanity in the whole
raging issue of diplomacy we have all forgotten the common man, aam aadmi. What
were the fault of those young kids who were killed in the attack, or the men
and women. These people just worked hard to earn their daily bread. Immaterial
of the fights between srilankan government and LTTE, they just carried on with
their life to feed their family. Killing people is not new to LTTE either.
Thousands of people have died in srilanka due to their suicide bombings and
attacks on bureaucrats. Who died the innocent common man. LTTE killings cannot
be pardoned; the most famous was the killing of our then prime minister the
charismatic late Rajiv Gandhi. India might have done lot of progress with him
at the helm. LTTE even trained small kids to operate guns, they trained their
army, got their weaponry secretly from neighboring countries. They used to make
innocent civilians as pawns, provoke them, and train them to carry out suicide
bombings. Again the common people suffered because of these extremists.
Fighting for a cause is just but resorting to terrorism is not. But again it’s
easier to say it sitting here, but situations over the years have provoked
terrorism.

In the aftermath of the war, it just makes you wonder,
decades of rivalry, perseverance and fight for a separate state just got these
people a lot. Was it worth? Was it worth to see your family die in front of you
or the ladies brutally and sexually abused. Was it all worth for the common
man? He still suffers and will do so in the future...